Policy 9.1.2 prohibits the combination of certain purchasing roles, such as iBuy, Banner, PCard, and fixed asset roles in FABweb and Biennial. To learn more about these roles, please see Internal Controls - Prohibited Role Combinations Explained

At the minimum, three individuals will are needed to hold the necessary roles while maintaining the required separation of duties. In the scenarios below, we will outline some potential configurations.

Scenario 1

We have three staff members: Employee A, Employee B, and Employee C. All are at least somewhat knowledgeable about purchasing and fixed assets procedures and have agreed to take on the necessary roles for their unit.

With the roles outlined above, Employee A has the responsibility of creating purchase requisitions and purchasing items with a PCard for their respective unit. With the Executive Approver role, Employee C can approve those requisitions in iBuy or return them to Employee A for corrections. If any of those purchases cross the dollar threshold for fixed assets, Employee B can enter the new acquisition record in FABweb. As the Biennial Unit Contact, Employee B also has the responsibility of conducting and completing the Biennial Inventory for their respective unit. Employee C, as a FABweb Approver and a Biennial Unit Head, can approve transfers and disposals as well as Biennial Inventories. Additionally, As an iBuy Executive Approver, Employee C can also act as a back up Unit Rep or Unit contact, if needed.

Scenario 2

Scenario one is somewhat simplistic, as it relates to only a single unit. What if Employees A, B, and C support multiple units? Perhaps they are in a central business office within a college or school, and they support multiple units within that college or school. Let’s look at an example that expands the support scope to two units.

Here we have added two new iBuy roles. Employee A has the same functions as in scenario one for Org 123, but they now have the iBuy Department Account Coder (DAC) role for Org 456. The DAC enters C-FOAPAL information on requisitions created by an iBuy Shopper. Employee B now has the Shopper for Org 456 role in addition to their FABweb and Biennial roles for both Orgs. Employee C maintains approver responsibilities for both orgs while also adding back-up Unit Rep and Unit Contact responsibilities.

Employees A, B, and C have all the same responsibilities as outlined in the first scenario. However, given the added load by supporting a second unit, Employee B has taken on purchasing responsibilities for Org 456. With the Shopper role, they can do everything necessary to create a requisition and submit it for approval except adding C-FOAPAL information. Once Employee B has completed a requisition, it moves to the DAC queue. Here Employee A can add the C-FOAPAL information and submit the requisition for approval from Employee C.

Because Employee B has taken on new procurement responsibilities, Employee C has also taken on back up Unit Rep and Unit Contact responsibilities. This is possible because they hold the iBuy Executive Approver role, which is not prohibited when combined with fixed asset roles.

These are just two simple scenarios to demonstrate how these roles can be combined to complete procurement and fixed asset tasks while still maintaining the necessary separation of duties. For consultation on how to implement the necessary separation of duties in your unit, school, or college, you may contact System Offices Shared Services